With teachers, parents, corporate leaders and even the president encouraging teenagers to become engineers, a well-paying field with solid job prospects, it seems a good place to start this series that explores college majors. Read on to learn more about engineering and whether it’s right for your student.

What is engineering? From whatisengineering.com: “Engineering is the application of scientific knowledge to solving problems in the real world. While science (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) allows us to gain an understanding of the world and the universe, engineering enables this understanding to come to life through problem-solving, designing and building.”

We encouraged our son to study engineering because he learned by understanding instead of memorizing, had a problem-solving nature—he took things apart to figure out how they worked and, from an early age, showed no fear when touching random keys on a computer to see what they did. He studied computer science and engineering in college, and yes, he is working, using his engineering skills as a product developer.

What skill set and interests do you need to become an engineer? Along with good problem-solving skills, an engineering major should like math and science and possess competence in both. Creativity also helps, because solving problems involves original thinking.

Don’t let the math requirement freak you out. I once heard an engineer, in speaking to a class of high school physics students, explain that they didn’t need to memorize a bunch of formulas, but they needed know how to use them. Engineering departments/firms keep those formulas on hand (imagine a mythical binder filled with formulas).

Students who struggle with math or science need to be willing to put in extra effort and take advantage of their college’s tutoring center if they are serious about earning an engineering degree. Calculus is an essential piece of the engineering puzzle and most disciplines require more than Calc A & B. Choosing an engineering discipline that plays to your strengths rather than your weaknesses helps, too.

What should you study in high school to prepare for a major in engineering? The website Tryengineering.com recommends that students interested in engineering take accelerated courses in these areas: algebra II, biology, calculus, chemistry, computer science, language arts, precalculus, physics, a foreign language and trigonometry. Students who can’t take a course at the highest level offered should at least take the level that challenges them.

What are the most popular engineering majors? The Top 4 include chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.

Chemical engineeringThis field covers work on everything from pharmaceuticals to food products, from fuels to paper products, from fertilizer to household cleaners. Chemical engineers work in the lab and the field to create commercial products via chemistry.

Civil engineeringThink roads, tunnels, bridges, dams and buildings. This broad area also covers applications relating to structural integrity, the environment, water resources and more.

Electrical engineeringAlmost everything you do today involves work by an electrical engineer—the computer or cell phone you’re reading this on, the program you watch on your television via the cable system that feeds it to your home. Electrical engineers work in various industries such as construction, manufacturing and design.

Mechanical engineeringConsidered the broadest of engineering disciplines, mechanical engineering overlaps with many of the other engineering fields. Professionals work on designing machines, systems, energy conversion devices and structures.

How many other engineering disciplines are there beyond the Top 4? Depending upon how specialized you view engineering, there are as many as 29 additional disciplines. These include but are not limited to audio, computer, aerospace, biomedical, environmental, mining/geological, automotive, manufacturing, nuclear, ocean, petroleum and software, among others. To learn about all the engineering disciplines, visit EducatingEngineers.com and Dedicatedengineers.org.

What career options are open to engineers? Engineering graduates can work directly in the field they studied or in a related area. Some would say engineers can work in almost any field they choose, even ones that appear unrelated, because of their problem-solving skills. Engineers do pursue careers in business, law and medicine. Various studies of the top CEOs have shown that anywhere from 20-30 percent hold degrees in engineering, equal to or more than those who earned business degrees.

How do you pick an engineering discipline? Fortunately, good college engineering programs require freshmen to all take the same core engineering courses that cross disciplines, enabling students to find which areas meet their interests and fit their abilities in order to declare a major by sophomore year.

Why should girls and minorities consider engineering? Colleges and corporations have finally woken up to the fact that they need more diversity among their engineering students and employees and now offer scholarships and hiring incentives to young women and minorities in order to achieve their goals. Girls and minority teens who want to create, design, build and solve the world’s problems should take a closer look at majoring in engineering.

Where can you learn more about engineering majors and the colleges that offer them? Start with the sites below to find colleges with engineering programs. Then search online to see where schools rank using the terms “top engineering schools” or “top [pick discipline] engineering schools.” Look beyond the top 10; there are plenty of good programs that rank below that.

Both application platforms have released their five essay topic options.

By Anne Vaccaro Brady

You’re likely familiar with the Common Application (Common App), the online application used by more than 600 colleges. This year, the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success (the Coalition) comprised of 90 colleges so far, has created another application, with 58 of its institutions accepting it for 2016-2017. Both applications require an essay. [More about the Coalition in a later post when the application goes live.]

The Coalition strongly recommends applicants keep essays to less than 550 words. The Common App continues its 650 maximum word count and the prompts remain the same as last year because topics are reviewed every other year. Unlike the Coalition, each Common App prompt addresses a specific topic, meaning there is no “create your own” option.

A quick assessment As someone who works with high school seniors on their admissions essays, I can assure you that your teen can find a suitable prompt on both applications. Though the Coalition suggests that a student can complete a solid essay in only 300 words, in my experience, that’s rarely the case. Applicants should take advantage of the maximum word count.

Encourage your teen to review the prompts for both applications carefully before starting to type. Generally, it’s easier to write the essay working from a specific topic than trying to figure it out after the fact. Keep in mind that with Coalition prompt #5 being an open topic, a student can use her Common App essay for this prompt.

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?

Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community or family.

To learn more about my work as a college essay coach, check out my Services page.

Share your thoughts on the admissions essay prompts in the comments section below.

The factors your student must consider before choosing one of these options.

By Anne Vaccaro Brady

On the many college tours I took with my kids, it seemed like every student guide was dual majoring or in a dual or concurrent degree program. Plenty of kids still study one major and others add a minor, but with all the talk about multiple majors and degrees, you may wonder, like I did, what they are and should your student go this route.

Dual/Double Major A student picks two areas to study, which may or may not be related, like computer science/mathematics or English/business. The diploma will list both majors under one degree. Entering college with AP or IB credits can help a student manage the extra course load and graduate in a timely manner.

Pros:

Some courses count toward both majors.

The combination can better prepare a student for a specific job/career path, for e.g.: studying biology/education to teach science upon graduation.

Strengthens time management skills.

Helps a student reach a specific goal after college.

Creates career options.

Allows a student to pursue his passion in one area and study another related to a chosen career path.

The extra classes can require an additional semester or two in order to complete both majors.

An employer might view the graduate as unfocused or someone who couldn’t make up his mind.

Additional semesters raise the cost of a degree and scholarships are often limited to four years.

The return on investment may not add up.

Often requires summer classes to graduate on time.

The heavier class- and workload can limit a student’s opportunity to intern, participate in extra-curriculars and/or socialize.

Dual Degree A student looks to earn two bachelor’s or two master’s degrees simultaneously. The degrees are in different areas, departments and/or schools of a college. A student receives a diploma for each degree.

Pros:

Better prepares a student entering a new field or trying to create a unique career path.

Employers might be impressed by the work ethic and the extensive knowledge base.

Both degree programs can require the same general education/core courses.

Enables a student to avoid paying full price for each degree.

Plus the other advantages of a dual major mentioned above.

Cons:

Usually unable to overlap courses.

Can be more expensive than earning one degree, especially if the college limits how many credits a student can take each semester.

Must work with two different departments or schools within the university whose credit requirements may not align.

Scheduling the right courses in the correct sequence is more challenging with two programs, especially unrelated ones.

Limited opportunity to take electives outside areas of study.

Almost impossible to graduate in four years.

Consecutive/Combined/Accelerated Degree I explained this degree program in a previous post, in which a student works toward a bachelor’s and master’s degree or a bachelor’s and doctorate degree in less time than if she pursued them separately. Essentially, the senior year of the bachelor’s program is comprised of the first year of graduate or doctorate courses, which count toward both degrees. A student receives an undergraduate degree after four years, then the advanced degree a year or two later depending upon whether it’s a master’s or a doctorate.

Pros:

Cuts a year off the time it takes to earn an undergrad and advanced degree.

Saves money.

Leads a student to start on a career path sooner.

Increases a grad’s marketability as she enters the job market with an advanced degree in hand.

Don’t have to commit to the program until junior year.

Eliminates the need to take graduate school entrance exams.

Cons:

Once committed, a student must complete the advanced degree at the same college.

Includes a heavier course load.

Limits the opportunity to change career paths, especially if degrees are geared toward a specific profession.

Leaves little room to fit in courses outside the major.

Same professors likely teaching courses for both degrees, reducing exposure to other perspectives.

I’ve known students who’ve chosen these major and degree options, and generally, those who’ve had the most career success focused on making themselves more marketable and understood their post-graduate options. They found ways to intern for credit, took advantage of opportunities to overlap courses and balanced their course loads with a life outside the classroom.

A big issue for parents of college applicants concerns whether their teenager will find a job with a living wage after graduation. Lynn O’Shaughnessy discusses how to measure college grad salaries in her post on her College Solution blog.

Considering a gap year With Malia Obama announcing she’ll take a gap year (a year off between high school and college) before heading to Harvard in the fall of 2018, families with high school students across the country have begun discussing this option. A couple of recent articles provide helpful info:

After finishing up freshman year, you may think the last thing your college student wants to or should do is hit the books again. But taking a college course over the summer comes with many benefits. Read on to get more details.

Why take a summer class Students choose studying over the summer for a variety of reasons:

To complete a tough course when they have time to focus on it exclusively.

To accelerate the road to a degree, hopefully saving time and money by graduating a semester or year early.

To open up room in a homework heavy fall schedule.

To make it easier to work toward a dual major or add a minor.

To earn a better grade in a class already taken.

To stay on track to graduate on-time when transferring colleges.

What to take General Education courses transfer easiest between institutions, so students should focus on these classes when deciding what to sign up for.

Summer sessions run anywhere from 3 to 10 weeks. Intensives require students to attend class every day for a set period of time, usually three or four weeks. This option is ideal for kids who don’t want to spend their whole summer working on a course, have a job or internship starting later in the summer, or can fit in a daily class around their work schedule.

Teens who can’t make it to the classroom should consider online courses. Some classes include a weekly online meeting time, but others allow students to progress at their own pace as long as they complete the coursework by the end of the session.

Where to take a summer course Students who have a reason to stay on campus—they have a job lined up there for the summer and/or have to pay rent for an apartment—should seriously consider taking a class at their own college. But it’s important to do the math before picking this option.

Most college summer courses are open to students from other institutions. Generally, community colleges offer the cheapest price per credit, followed by public universities, then private colleges.

When researching colleges near home, students must first check which ones have the course(s) they want to take during the summer session in order to compare and pick the campus that best suits their needs in terms of cost, schedule and location.

How to take a summer class If possible, students should check with their college adviser to find out which courses will transfer from another school. Transferology.com also provides this information.

Then they should search “visiting,” “transient” or “guest student” on the websites of nearby colleges for information. The results will lead to directions on how to apply and register for a class (expect a fee to complete both steps) and provide a link to the summer course catalog.

An application acceptance can take a few hours or a couple of days. (Follow up if it’s taking longer.) Once accepted, students receive instructions on how to log in to register for classes, pay for credits and access their campus email.

To prove that a prerequisite class, such as English Composition 1, was completed, guest students can usually share an unofficial copy of their current transcript, which they can download from their home college student account page.

As long as the prereqs are met, students can register on their own online or in-person, no adviser required.

Who to see for help For problems registering online, the summer session office or admissions department should be able to help.

Issues with payments can be resolved at the bursar’s office. Note that financial aid is rarely available for guest students.

Your chance to share what others don’t know about your teen, but should.

By Anne Vaccaro Brady

Every spring high school guidance departments send parents of juniors a questionnaire called the Parent Brag Sheet, explaining that the student’s counselor will use the responses to write a recommendation for college. If you received one and, after reviewing it, thought your teen’s counselor should know all this information, you’d be wrong.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the national average of student-to-school-counselor ratio is 491:1. With numbers like that, it becomes apparent why your teen’s counselor cannot know him as well as you do.

This means your answers to these questions matter. As one parent of a high school junior recently told me, the counselors at her son’s school are known to use the words on this form verbatim.

How to answer Whether the Parent Brag Sheet says it or not, the school counselor is looking for anecdotes to sprinkle throughout the recommendation, so make sure to provide some.

Remember, this is not an activity sheet or high school resume, but information that can be inserted into a recommendation letter. Write in full sentences instead of bullet points; one or two short paragraphs per question. Your responses should also include details about your student that can’t be found elsewhere, and/or expand upon the details provided on your teen’s activity sheet/high school resume.

Be positive. Instead of writing “John may not be the smartest kid in his class,” say “John works harder than most students to maintain his B average.”

How to answer these commonly asked questions:What do you consider to be your child’s outstanding accomplishments during the past three or four years? Why did you select these as important? This is often the first question on the brag sheet. You can use items from your student’s high school resume and enhance what you choose to highlight. For example, your daughter was named captain of the volleyball team in junior year. Great. But was it based on her athletic abilities or leadership skills, or both? Was she picked by the coach or voted in by her teammates? Maybe your teen is on the student council that worked to change a school policy. Also consider accomplishments outside of school, whether in the community or your own family.

In answering the second question, emphasize how these accomplishments represent who your child really is and why she’d be an asset to a college.

In what areas has your child shown the most development and growth during the past three or four years? This is a good place to include your teen’s increased commitment to his academics, especially if his grades have improved steadily since he was a freshman or sophomore, and/or he began adding honors/AP/IB classes in the last year or two. But there are other areas to highlight as well.

Use examples of your teen showing maturity whether at home, school or in the community. Did your student start helping his younger siblings with their homework when Mom or Dad works late? Has he developed stronger relationships with his teachers or taken the initiative to ask for help, which is reflected in his improved grades and self-confidence? Maybe he finally overcame his shyness and signed up for a club or sport he’s been interested in and puts all his effort into it because he enjoys it so much.

Are there any unusual or personal circumstances that have affected your child’s education or personal experiences? Use this question to address the impact of a parent’s job loss, family crisis (like a divorce, serious illness), move to a new town and school, etc. The counselor and colleges need to understand the challenges your child has dealt with during her high school years. If not asked anywhere else on the brag sheet, take advantage of this space to address learning or other disabilities your student faces. Do not feel you must answer this question if your family has been lucky enough to avoid serious challenges.

What five adjectives best describe your child? Take some time to really think about this. Your first reaction might be words like smart, respectful and athletic, but what about motivated, independent, kind, humble, mature, courageous, self-disciplined, independent thinker, humorous, resourceful, etc? Some brag sheets ask you to explain your answers, so choose words you can support with specific examples.

Is there any other information you would like to share that was not covered above? Here you can provide examples that illustrate the side of your teen you feel most people miss, like his sense of responsibility or the fact that he’s a good friend or his commitment to the pee-wee soccer team he helps coach.

The bottom line on the brag sheet As parents, we know our children better than anyone and here’s the chance to let everyone else in on what makes our kids special.

Share your advice and experiences on the parent brag sheet in the comments section below.

The program Learn about whether the major your student plans to study is established or brand new at a college. New programs sometimes take awhile to get fully staffed with course offerings limited the first year or two. Also find out if there’s any chance the program will be eliminated in the near future or if there have been any recent cutbacks. Read about the faculty and review the course list for the program at each school to compare them.

Also check out if a school offers an accelerated degree program in which a student earns his bachelor’s and graduate degrees in tandem, saving at least a year’s tuition and cutting off a couple of semesters of classroom time, while not diminishing his education.

Grad school Besides learning whether a college has an accelerated degree program, find out how many students go on to graduate school and where. If your student anticipates taking this path, she’ll want a college that can help her get there.

Certification issues For students interested in careers that require certification, such as teaching, it makes the most sense to look at colleges in the state where you plan to work because the exams are specific to that state. Colleges generally don’t prepare their students for another state’s requirements. I know several graduates who found themselves delayed in finding a full-time job because of this issue.

Merit/academic scholarships The most competitive colleges provide need-based aid and usually nothing more because they attract large numbers of high-achieving applicants. On her Road2College website, Debbie Schwarz explains how to find colleges that offer merit scholarships. Always check out if scholarships are for one year or guaranteed for four.

Academic calendar The majority of American colleges are on a semester system (two 15-week sessions), but some follow a trimester (three 10-week sessions) or quarter system (same as the trimester, but with an optional 10-week summer session). Though there are positives and negatives to each system, be aware that students not on the semester system tend to leave later for campus in the fall and return home later in the spring, putting their schedule out of sync with most of their friends. Finishing up in June instead of May can also put them at a disadvantage in gaining summer employment or an internship, or getting that first job after graduation.

Internship opportunities We all know that experience plays a key role in finding a job these days. Internships provide experience and help students decide if they’ve chosen the right career field. Your teen might want to look for colleges that require internships or emphasize that they assist students in securing one. Also explore the quality of a college’s alumni network.

Housing It’s not just about the aesthetics and the age of the dorms, but about whether they’re co-ed (most are these days), and if that’s by room or floor. How comfortable is your student with communal bathrooms and does he want one roommate or several? Most colleges offer living-learning communities, residences where students share similar majors or a focus, and activities are designed around their interests. Some students prefer living with like-minded teens, but others want to create their own social experience. Also note if a college guarantees housing after freshman year.

The college town Colleges don’t all have to be in the heart of a major city or close to one, but there should be a community nearby where your student can find a store to buy her favorite snacks, pick up a tube of toothpaste, purchase an iTunes card or go bowling. My nephew attends a college where he and his friends ride their bikes into town to shop, eat or just get a change of scenery. It also helps when there’s cheap or free transportation to bring students on and off campus.

Aesthetics Some kids look for a school where all the buildings are shiny and new while others like the old stone covered in ivy. Some want the pastoral campus that includes a quad with lush green grass and trees lining intertwining walkways, and others prefer a college that’s clearly part of a city. Understand how these differences can shape your student’s experience.

The weekend Certain residential colleges can be considered commuter campuses because so many kids go home on weekends, making it a ghost town for the ones who stick around on Friday and Saturday. Make sure your teen understands the personality of a campus—this might mean talking with current or former students to learn the real deal.

Transportation Depending upon how far away your student wants to go to college, access to buses, trains and/or airplanes can be very important. If you don’t have the flexibility or ability to bring your kid to and from college during breaks, your student will need one of these transportation options, or at least a decent ride-sharing program.

Houses of worship If practicing her faith is important to your teen, she’ll want to find a college that gives her easy access to services either on or near campus. Even religious affiliated colleges, like Georgetown, have services and student organizations for many faiths. This information should be readily available on a college’s website.